


Cave In

by flammablehat



Series: Cave In [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-11
Updated: 2011-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-24 12:46:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flammablehat/pseuds/flammablehat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A winter trek back to Camelot is abruptly interrupted by a sharp drop and a sudden stop.  And Arthur wonders why Merlin would rather just stay home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cave In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wangler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wangler/gifts).



> So this probably deserves a fair amount of disclaiming. First thing's first - I had every intention of expanding this from its original version, which, for those of you who are more familiar with my habits, of course means I added absolutely nothing to it. I may eventually write them as excerpts, as there were really only two more scenes that I thought of and one of them was porn and there's always every excuse to write free-floating porn, am I right? So there's that.
> 
> Far more importantly, I have to properly (and finally) thank [](http://new-kate.livejournal.com/profile)[**new_kate**](http://new-kate.livejournal.com/) , [](http://kaizoku.livejournal.com/profile)[**kaizoku**](http://kaizoku.livejournal.com/) , and [](http://ella-bane.livejournal.com/profile)[**ella_bane**](http://ella-bane.livejournal.com/) for holding my hand pretty much every step of the way through writing this. I honestly wouldn't have finished it without them. All legitimate things about this story, from the science of cold + bodies + injuries to an understanding of how caves and frozen lipids work, belong to them. All illegitimate things like fail!science and improbable boners most certainly belong to me. Seriously guys, thank you again. All my ♥ for you forever.
> 
> Finally, this was and remains a gift for my dearest [](http://lolafeist.livejournal.com/profile)[**lolafeist**](http://lolafeist.livejournal.com/). You inspire me to try things that are uncomfortable and fun and scary and I really don't want to devolve into utter schmoopiness here, but you're an incredible talent and an even more incredible friend. I'm so glad to have met you. ♥
> 
> * * *

It was a smaller, mounded incline leading up the slope of a steeper hill. Arthur had looked at it, appraising with eyes slitted against the glare off of untouched snow, and measured that the drift would be deep but not impassable.

Merlin let the waxed and oiled straps of his multiple burdens sag a little in his arms.

“Can’t we just – go around?” he said, anticipating a thigh-deep struggle and the additional strain of keeping their packs clear of the wet. Navigating a drift was like slogging through frozen mud – and him in only his second best pair of trousers, too.

Arthur rolled his eyes. “At your pace we wouldn’t reach the castle until well after nightfall. Anything to be gained in ease of passage would be lost in spending any more time than necessary out of doors. The air will freeze, soon. Best get inside as fast as possible.”

So saying, he began the labored trek up the side of the hill with powerful lunges, thighs bunching under his quilted winter breeches. Merlin sighed, following in the deep furrows left in Arthur’s wake. He curled his toes in his boots, trying to encourage some feeling back into his frigid extremities. The sting of cold nipped at his nose, the tips of his ears, the chapped ridges of his knuckles and every plane of his exposed skin.

He wore an old hunting cloak given to him by Gaius but which he suspected once belonged to Arthur, as it was unfortunately short in the arms. But it was heavy, thick wool, and far better than anything he owned himself; certainly superior to the rest of his garments. In spite of his best efforts and a goodly amount of mutton fat rubbed into the leather, his boots were already beginning to wet from the snow and slush. It was likely true that Arthur was right, that it was best to push through until they could tumble safely inside and toast happily before a hearth. There was nothing to gain from avoiding the straight path aside from an easier go of it, and ‘an easier go of it’ was never a compelling reason to Arthur Pendragon, Merlin knew.

Resettling his burdens, Merlin did his best to jog to catch up with Arthur’s more demanding pace. In the stillness of the winter air, there was a strange creaking sound. Arthur paused, allowing Merlin to draw abreast of him about halfway up the hill.

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Merlin asked, puffing. It came again, a sharp noise like wood settling.

And then the ground gave way beneath them.

\----------------------

Arthur rolled over onto his side and lifted his hands to his head, gagging at the pain spiking at the base of his skull. Nausea heaved through him and his body curled in around it, fingers skittering to claw at the ground. The whole world was spinning, spinning, and the snow under his palms smeared red.

Sunlight poked at him from a great distance away. A shuffle like a flock of birds taking flight all at once, and the impact of fresh snow raining down on him, and Arthur saw only dark.

\----------------------

He woke next to a bone deep chill and the sharp scrape of grit across his cheek. His lighter-weight leather plate armor had frozen while he’d lain sprawled, unconscious. Sitting took several attempts, and when he finally creaked his way upright he only had a pounding head and a disorienting moment of gray vision to show for it. He moved his arms, dislodging almost a foot of powdery snow from his upper body, and blinked his eyes at the gloom of an unnatural twilight.

Though he judged he probably had a minor concussion by the blood frozen into his hair and the wretched ache glowing just beneath his skull, he estimated he hadn’t been out for more than a couple of hours. Too short a time for darkness to have fallen. Peering up, visibility bled into indiscernible mirk but for the vaguest hints of light running like veining through a more persistent gray.

A cave-in, then. And a fresh roof of snow some distance above their heads, if he guessed correctly.

He turned to dig into their supply pack, the one Merlin had been carrying on his shoulders, before he realized Merlin wasn’t beside him. Merlin — where was Merlin?

“Oh, hell,” Arthur said, spotting an irregular mound of snow some distance off. He lurched upright, suffering a shock at the initial stiffness of his limbs. He pressed forward with quick and certain movement out of force of habit more than anything else, and came to a skidding halt on the icy, uneven ground.

A moment’s digging uncovered a hard, sharp shape that resolved itself into a shoulder, and then a long arm, and Merlin’s hand, ice-white and equally cold. A roiling sick threatened in Arthur’s gut again. Impatient, he gave up on digging for hauling Merlin bodily from his cocoon of snow, laying him out flat on a patch of clear ground and immediately bending his ear to Merlin’s unnaturally still mouth.

The sound of Arthur’s heartbeat thudded too loud in the oppressive silence of the cave, and he closed his eyes, counting six beats, seven, ten — jerking in surprise when a puff of breath hit his cheek with a quiet whisper of air.

“Merlin, you stupid, resilient creature,” Arthur said, overcome with immediate and warring impulses to search the area for something with which he could make a fire and the need to wake Merlin, to see his eyes open and clear.

He stripped his gloves to brush the snow from Merlin’s hair and the collar of his cloak, which Arthur thought he dimly recognized. He smoothed the crystals from Merlin’s eyebrows with his thumbs, and the hard chill of Merlin’s skin made up his mind to forgo a potentially fruitless search for burnable material in favor of more immediate efforts. He lifted Merlin against his chest and carried him, searching until he met a wall. It was the granite face of the hill against which their drift abutted, cold and unforgiving but solid. Arthur leaned his back to the stone and slid to the ground, carefully folding Merlin’s long body into his lap.

He tucked Merlin’s booted feet beneath his thigh and settled his narrow torso along his own chest in the way he’d often watched nursemaids place children close against them to sleep. Gathering Merlin’s limp wrists into his hands, Arthur arranged Merlin’s arms so that his gloveless hands were pressed tight between their chests.

The shell of Merlin’s ear was like a cold brand against Arthur’s cheek. In the same manner he might curry a horse, Arthur began a slow, circular press with both of his hands across Merlin’s back, flank and thighs, willing the blood to move more swiftly under Merlin’s skin. He thought of snowmelt in the springtime, riverbanks breaking free of their icy garments with the onset of new warmth, and with every pass of his fingers drew Merlin in as close as their bodies would allow.

\----------------------

It was fully night before Merlin woke. He groaned and shifted fitfully in Arthur’s arms, prodding him from his light doze.

“Merlin?” Arthur said, head cottony with sleep and a lingering thrumming ache. Merlin didn’t respond except to spasm sharply. Alarmed, Arthur’s fingers tightened against Merlin’s sides, which prompted a pained gasp and a series of wracking heaves. Merlin had barely turned his head to the side before sicking up all over the ground, his whole body shaking in Arthur’s lap.

Arthur held him steady until the retching subsided, unaccountably dazed and unsure of what else to do — how else to help, then moved to lift them both clear of the mess. He carried Merlin a ways down the granite wall, resettling them into a fresh spot that was clean and yet somehow seemed spitefully frigid, their first hard-won pocket of not-quite-warmth abandoned in the shift.

“Arthur,” Merlin said.

“Yes?” Arthur said, glad to hear Merlin’s voice, even if it was only a thready ghost of itself — even if Merlin was only going to call him a stubborn ass.

“My mouth tastes foul.”

A bubble of laughter shook Arthur. He fed Merlin tiny pinches of snow until they both slipped back into sleep, clinging together like a pair of rabbits in a den.

\----------------------

The light was no greater the following day. It was the first thing Arthur noticed when he opened his eyes, his head infinitely more clear than the previous night.

He would have to do a careful exploration of the area to find a safe way back to their path, which, without sunlight to guide the way, would require the final torch in their packs. Arthur didn’t like it, but there was nothing for it. Better to find the swiftest road to freedom than save the light for another nightfall. With any luck they would be back home long before the evening had a chance to approach.

Exploring necessitated getting up. Getting up would disturb Merlin, who was stupidly underdressed for the weather even if he was well, and Arthur couldn’t be certain of that. Unless Merlin often vomited himself into wakefulness.

Again, Arthur was reminded of the benefits light would provide, if he could only get up and find their torch. If Merlin was hurt, it would be better for Arthur to see the nature of his injuries on the off chance there was something he could do. Thus resolved, he gingerly shifted Merlin off of his chest and onto the ground beside them. Merlin stirred, flinching in at the shock of cold, and Arthur didn’t waste a moment shedding his own cloak and tucking it around Merlin’s shoulders so he was wrapped up like a thin, poky dumpling.

The frozen air pressed in miserable, close, and dry, like a sudden full-body flaying. Arthur gasped at it, feeling the sting in his nose and throat at once. He stumbled back in the direction of the place where he’d first found Merlin, a churn of snow refrozen in the vague shape left by a body. After a solid ten minutes of searching that felt like three hours, Arthur finally found the packs some way off in a wide scatter. His fingers were dumb and clumsy on the icy leather.

By the time he crumpled down by Merlin’s side again, his nail beds and lips were blue and his head was swimming. Like a drowsy kitten sensing its mother, Merlin crawled haltingly back into Arthur’s lap, dragging the larger of the two cloaks over their heads.

“Idiot,” he whispered against Arthur’s neck. The warmth of his breath was a humid tickle.

Arthur took up his mindless rubbing at Merlin’s body again, mostly trying to work some warmth back into his chapped hands. They shivered together, Merlin curling and uncurling around him like a creeping vine, pursuing the most comfortable position.

It was a complete accident, Arthur still drifting distant and slow in the animal comforts of a warm, solid body pressed to his own, and it took him a disorienting moment to realize what his wrist had brushed against. Merlin stiffened and went still, easy breathing gone suddenly quiet underneath the cloak. Arthur moved his hand again, unable to muster up anything more creative than surprise when he cupped a handful of Merlin’s rigid cock in his fingers.

“What are you doing?” Merlin hissed, jerking.

“What am _I_ doing?” Arthur said, incredulous.

“Stop,” Merlin said. Bit out. Arthur realized he couldn't — wouldn't — move.

“It’s alright,” Arthur said, not sure what he was thinking. He didn’t remove his hand, and Merlin didn’t wilt the long minutes they sat there in each others’ arms, and Arthur repeated “It’s alright. Do you...?” he trailed off. Merlin turned his face into Arthur’s neck and tilted his hips up against Arthur’s palm, and it was something like instinct that had his hand curling over the tight bulge and making a few short, exploratory tugs.

Merlin whimpered at the chill when Arthur dug into his breeches and wrapped his fingers around his blood-hot flesh. Arthur released a puff of quiet humour, never imagining he’d enjoy gripping a prick so much as he did in that moment — not when the hard length in his hand wasn’t his own, anyway. He kept his stroke gentle and loose, leery of wetting the slide for fear of magnified discomfort later when Merlin’s skin cooled.

And it wasn’t so different from the careful massaging of limbs they’d already shared, but for the air beneath the cloak growing close and cosy with exhaled breath, and the way Merlin’s squirming seemed to aid the determined seed of fondness taking root somewhere in Arthur’s centre. He hushed Merlin through his climax, reasoning if his manservant could hitch like an eager colt in his pleasure then he couldn’t be too grievously hurt.

Arthur wiped his hand clean on the edge of Merlin’s cloak and settled him comfortably across his thighs, feeling well pleased with the hint of pink to Merlin’s face. “Better?” Arthur asked, smiling when Merlin shot him a dirty glare.

He grabbed at their supply pack and produced their oiled torch and flint rock. Merlin had to shift to the side to let Arthur prop the torch up and attempt to coax a spark to it, but the oil had long solidified and wasn’t taking to the light well. Arthur was ready to curse the thing for useless and do something inadvisable like fling it away when Merlin touched his arm. In the moment of distraction the flint struck and the torch caught, flaring to life with a crackle of rapidly expanding wood.

They both winced in the first glow of the flames, unaccustomed to the brightness. When he looked around again, Arthur got his first good measure of Merlin’s injuries.

Merlin appeared, if possible, even more like an abused scarecrow than usual. A black eye exaggerated the play of shadow across his face, as did the cut lip and impressive scraping along his right cheek. By Merlin’s dubious expression, Arthur figured he must not look much better.

“Let me see your side,” Arthur said. They paused, eyeing each other, but when Arthur put his hand forward Merlin remained still.

It would be uncomfortable to leave the cloak turned down and tunic turned up for too long, so Arthur brought the torch close and peeled back Merlin’s rough linen shirt quickly. What he saw set off a slow peal of warning bells in his mind: mottled brush-like bruising painted Merlin’s pale flanks, curling up as high as his chest on one side and as low as his hip on the opposite. Near his abdomen the bruising looked livid, alive and boiling beneath the delicate barrier of skin. Arthur had seen injuries like that before. He replaced Merlin’s clothing and resettled the cloak.

“What?” Merlin said.

“I need to check for a way out. Stay here and keep warm,” Arthur said, beginning to stand.

“Take your cloak,” Merlin said, as if Arthur were dim.

“I’ll be back shortly,” Arthur said.

“Yes, and you’ll be needing your cloak. Don’t be daft; it’s freezing and I really don’t feel like trying to find you when you pass out and snuff the torch.”

Annoyed, Arthur snatched the cloak from Merlin’s hands and slung it around his shoulders. He discovered that the ground was mostly dirt as he began to walk, for all that it was frozen as hard as stone. There wasn’t a lot of snow to be found excepting what Arthur assumed fell down with them, and much of that churned up and dirtied already. Neither was there anything lying about with which he could make a fire, or that they might even be able to eat. But he put those thoughts aside to concern himself with later, feeling the matter would be resolved if they could only find their way clear of this pit. Arthur hoped to discover a cave entrance or navigable crevice, assuming they’d stumbled into an abandoned animal den. He tried not to think what it would mean for them if they had in fact fallen into a fissure or sinkhole, or if they were forced to climb to freedom, or if there was no place from which to climb.

Upon further inspection Arthur discovered that the hole they’d stumbled into wasn’t all that large, perhaps an irregular circle roughly seventeen metres in diameter overall. The walls that weren’t sharp granite felt more like earth, packed down tight and threaded through with roots of varying thicknesses. There was nothing to suggest that the cave had ever been inhabited, that it wasn’t useless in the warmer months for being open to the elements and inhospitable in the winter for even more obvious reasons.

And what was worse: Arthur thought he could probably climb back up the way they’d fallen in, using the earthen wall and its scraggly handholds to lever himself out and back onto solid ground. But even he would have to strip his armor, abandon his sword and knives and take only the clothes on his back to improve his chances of escape. Merlin would never be up to such a climb, even less so now that Arthur had some idea of his condition. And if Arthur were to try to get help, and abandoned Merlin here to wait, it wouldn’t matter. He would never make it back in time.

When Arthur returned to him, Merlin was a small huddled ball under his insufficient cloak. He looked up at the sound of grit crunching beneath Arthur’s boot, and his expression was a mask of resignation that echoed Arthur’s own feelings on their predicament with eerie prescience. Saying nothing, Arthur slid to the ground and promptly tugged Merlin against him, gentle with Merlin’s middle but efficient in swinging his cloak back around them both and burrowing down to think.

\----------------------

Arthur woke slowly, his first coherent thought to flick Merlin soundly on the ear for letting the fire die _again_ in the night.

And then his senses returned to him in a rush and he bit back a groan.

In all of his days training as a knight, through all of his tournaments and wrestling matches and boyhood exertions, he was certain he had never felt so sore in his life. The cold was like a poison penetrating ever deeper beneath his skin, stinging through his blood and curdling in his muscles, binding his joints to painful immobility.

Propped up against him, Merlin was a sharp ungainly weight. Arthur tipped Merlin’s face close against his neck, releasing a quiet breath when he felt the stirring of Merlin’s exhales. He tangled his fingers through the chilly threads of hair at Merlin’s nape, resolving to have the castle seamstresses weave him an entire collection of hats when they escaped this mess and returned home. And a new cloak, and mittens, and thick socks for his boots. And maybe some wool smallclothes, while the women were already working at the loom. Arthur might even go to the extra effort to provide the funds for a cheerful rosy dye, grinning already at the thought of Merlin’s horror when Arthur — no, a comely maid! — presented him with pink undergarments.

Arthur was fully rubbing at the base of Merlin’s skull now, a place Arthur happened to know would always make Merlin near purr with satisfaction, but Merlin had yet to wake. His breath still came, soft and discouragingly slow, but even a careful pinch to his arm had no effect.

“Merlin,” Arthur said, surprised at the rasp of his own voice. He cleared his throat and leaned in closer to a bloodless ear. “ _Mer_ lin.”

“Whu,” Merlin grumbled, eyebrows knitting.

“Come on Merlin, wake up,” Arthur said, giving them a little shake before resuming his careful rubbing. “You are the laziest excuse for a manservant I’ve ever had. We’ve slept fifteen of the past twenty hours and you’re still tired?”

“M’not,” Merlin said, curling in closer against Arthur’s chest.

“You surely are,” Arthur said, answering the annoyance in Merlin’s tone more than his partially coherent grumbling. “We have to warm you up,” Arthur said, squeezing him tight around the shoulders. “I need your help, Merlin.”

Merlin made no reply. Arthur tried to tamp down the early stirrings of panic, cursing himself for the unbidden thought that Merlin might actually die in his arms. He _had_ to get Merlin warm and awake, enough that they could examine their predicament together and maybe come up with a solution. Arthur had never known anyone so pig-headed and insane as Merlin, who refused to die or let others die around him when it was right and proper for them to do so, and Arthur wasn’t about to watch it happen in a bloody sinkhole mere hours from his own castle.

He rifled quickly through his memories of early camp excursions and winter hunting trips, considering and discarding all manner of options unavailable to them. They had no flasks of hot water, or any means of making a fire, or a large company of men with whom they could share blankets and space. He remembered Sir Leon’s council that the most important places to restore warmth to a chilled body were the vulnerable centers: under arms and around the neck, where the blood could carry heat to the rest of the body, and also in the groin.

Arthur’s hands stilled, and he looked down at Merlin’s dark head. Would...might that even work? Would it be safe given the state of Merlin’s injuries? He hadn’t known the extent of Merlin’s hurts the first time, and Merlin was certainly worse off now. And Arthur hadn’t expected to repeat the experience — for pity’s sake, why would he? It wasn’t as if he would seek out this kind of contact with a man, and a servant, and his friend — or as if Merlin even wanted him to.

Then again, there was no call to bring him all the way to orgasm, necessarily. It might just be helpful to get his heart up and working. Merlin could gripe at him later for making free with his hands and being a callous prig, and Arthur could point out that Merlin had certainly appeared to enjoy himself, and they would volley back and forth until Arthur collared Merlin around his skinny neck and gave him the head knuckling of his life. Like they always did.

And again Arthur was faced with the thought of what his world might look like without...without that, without _Merlin_ , and he didn’t quite know how to reckon his accounts on that score.

He resolved himself to start slowly, and took a moment to draw the cloak more tightly around them and over their heads. The space between Merlin’s legs was just marginally warmer than the rest of him, and through the cloth of his breeches his genitals felt soft and small. If it had been odd to hold another man’s hard cock in his hands, it was downright bizarre to cup at Merlin flaccid. There was an intense feeling of trespassing to the act, and intimacy, paradoxical as it would seem. And Arthur had no earthly idea what Merlin liked when he touched himself, or allowed others to touch him, and wasn’t that an odd thought? Merlin with a girl, Merlin kissing some sweet maiden and guiding her soft hand between his legs and bucking happily into her palm like Arthur already knew he would.

Arthur figured he must be dazed with cold to linger over this effort any longer than necessary. He governed himself back to the task at hand and began a slow, careful knead with his fingers. For long moments there was nothing, though Merlin shifted a little against him. And then Arthur felt it, the thickening of Merlin’s cock, filling sluggishly against the meat of his palm. Encouraged, Arthur ran strong fingers around the softness of Merlin’s balls, reasoning he enjoyed the feeling and hoping Merlin wouldn’t be too different. The effect was instantaneous, Arthur noticing it first in the fluttering of Merlin’s eyelashes and feeling it immediately after in his hand, Merlin’s whole length stiffening with admirable speed.

Merlin uttered a quiet sound, his chest beginning to rise and fall with a more regular pattern of breathing, and Arthur almost laughed with relief. He couldn’t see much in the gloom under the cloak, their torch having long guttered into a cold oily stump, but he could feel the softness of Merlin’s hair under his chin and the ball of his fists low against his stomach. He hefted Merlin up into a more comfortable position against his shoulder and dropped his head to breathe at the hollow of Merlin’s long neck, planting as much heat against his white skin as he could muster.

He lifted and tugged at Merlin’s balls, choosing to neglect Merlin’s cock for the soft heat between his thighs, rolling and manipulating his fingers until Merlin’s whole body was undulating with it. Between one moment and the next Merlin’s eyes opened, and he gazed at Arthur with such naked, trusting need that Arthur redoubled his efforts, playing the blade of his hand in the curve of Merlin’s firm bottom and thumbing the soft little spot under his testicles when he discovered it made Merlin jerk and whimper.

“Arthur,” Merlin said, voice gravelly and thick. “Arthur, please.”

“Shhh,” Arthur said, his free hand tightening around Merlin’s shoulder. “I have you.”

Merlin whined, burying the sound in Arthur’s neck while his hips played right into Arthur’s hand. He wriggled sharply, and Arthur almost let go, experiencing a vertiginous moment where it occurred to him Merlin might have been asking for something else, but Merlin’s icy fingers caught his wrist and pushed him down hard, and Arthur found himself squeezing gently over and over while Merlin whimpered and pinched his eyes shut and rubbed messily at his cockhead through his breeches until his whole body went limp in Arthur’s arms.

Arthur smiled, finding his breath oddly short but content with the looseness of Merlin’s limbs curled up against him. At least until he tilted Merlin back into a more recumbent position and noticed his eyes were closed again, and that his breath had returned to its shallow, labored cadence.

Arthur had to restrain himself from shaking Merlin roughly awake, alarm and annoyance warring for dominance in his gut. “Merlin,” he grit, completely at a loss.

“M’fine, Arthur,” Merlin grumbled, mouth turning down into a little frown. Arthur said nothing, just listened to the drumming of his own heart and stared at the impossible tangle in his lap. After a long moment Merlin opened his eyes, and beneath his lashes his gaze was dark and glittering and incongruously wry. “I’m not so easy to kill,” he said, quiet and clear, before he closed his eyes again.

Arthur wasn’t so certain.

\----------------------

When Arthur woke next, it was to the sound of garbled muttering. He lifted Merlin around in his lap so that he straddled Arthur’s legs, his fists dropped loosely between their stomachs. Merlin’s eyes stared blankly at the granite wall behind Arthur’s head, and when Arthur lifted the back of his hand to touch Merlin’s brow, his skin was dry and hot with fever.

\----------------------

“I know you can make it out of here,” Merlin said. Arthur started with surprise, his own mind having wandered to the training field in summer and bathing in the lake. The sweet taste of fresh berries on his lips. “I want you to go.”

“This is your problem, Merlin,” Arthur said, feeling very wise as his head lolled back against the stone. “You never seem to learn. I have no intention of listening to you.”

“I know,” Merlin said. The tone of his voice was one Arthur had never heard from him before, and it made him sit upright and seek out Merlin’s eyes. “May I ask one thing of you, in that case?”

“Yes,” Arthur said. He meant to add more, about how Merlin never hesitated to ask for anything, and why should he now, but there was nothing left of play for them in that moment and Arthur realized that he wanted to. He wanted to give Merlin whatever he had left to give. But Merlin said nothing, just touched Arthur’s face with his cold fingertips.

Arthur was almost expecting it when Merlin leaned towards him, because nothing else could account for the way he swayed in to meet the kiss that was meant for his brow with his mouth. Sweet, sweet warmth bloomed between them, in the touch of Merlin’s tongue to his teeth, and the soft wet press of their lips. Arthur’s heart clenched, and he gripped Merlin carelessly in that moment, feeling suddenly as if their places were reversed and he was begging some last mercy off of his friend.

When Merlin slowly peeled away, he whispered an apology and tipped his head back to the gray of their snowy roof.

“Kilgharrah,” he said, quite clearly, “come for us.”


End file.
